1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a technique for dynamically translating network management primitives into operations on management information stored within a Management Information Base (MIB). More particularly, the present invention is concerned with that subset of network management systems in which the Management Information Base is implemented as a Relational Database.
2. Background of the Invention
Communications networks, such as data communications networks, use network management systems to control and monitor the performance of devices attached to the network. Many such current network management systems use relational databases for persistent storage of various information relating to the network and devices therein. Recently, various standards bodies have proposed a protocol called Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) designed to carry information about the specific managed objects in the network and about operations to be executed upon them.
Unfortunately, this CMIP protocol does not provide for persistent storage of information. Nor does it provide a mechanism for interfacing with current techniques using Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS).
The present invention addresses this problem by providing a method and apparatus for translating between CMIP and RDBMS using standard Structured Query Language (SQL) queries.